Haleon plc is a FTSE 100, British multinational consumer healthcare company with over twenty thousand staff globally. Haleon is committed to supporting the wider wellbeing of employees and wants to provide employees with support for various aspects of financial wellbeing.
They therefore partner with WEALTH at work to offer financial wellbeing programmes for its employees. There are three elements to the support provided:
- Financial education seminars and digital support – Employees are provided with access to face-to-face and online financial education seminars from early-career to mid-career support as well as helping them plan for retirement or how to make the most of their employee share schemes and other benefits and saving vehicles. After the seminars, employees have access to a microsite where they can review highlights of the session that they attended, book onto future seminars and keep up-to-date with the latest news articles.
- Telephone helpline – Following each seminar, all employees have access to a telephone helpline and can request a call back from a financial coach who provides help and guidance to address any questions they may have, as well as sign-posting further support.
- Investment advice – For those who want to understand their personal financial situation and receive bespoke support, investment advice is also available.
WEALTH at work has been running these programmes for a number of years and the feedback collated after the seminars indicates that there is a significant improvement in the employees’ knowledge as a result of financial education. For example, those employees who attended the ‘Preparing for your retirement’ session were asked to rate their knowledge on the topic before and after the session. On a scale of 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest), attendees rated their knowledge as 2.97 before the session and 4.18 after it. In addition, the average score for those who indicated that they would take specific financial actions following the session was ranked as 4.30 out of 5, and 4.60 out of 5 would recommend it to a colleague. Furthermore, 36% of those who attended a session requested further guidance from a financial coach.
The below comments are from a selection of employees who attended the financial education sessions:
“Great session – put my mind at rest on several subjects.”
“Following on from this session, I would like to contribute more to my pension pot.”
“The Financial Coach was fantastic, really clear and understandable, tangible explanations of complex and confusing tax and financial topics. Thank you!”
Ketan Patel, Head of APAC and EMEA Benefits, Haleon, comments;
“Financial wellbeing has proven to be integral to improving wider employee wellbeing. We have found it is important to provide employees with financial education early in their careers as it may be the first time that they are coming across certain areas such as pensions, understanding pay slips, tax, national insurance or planning for their financial future. However, it is also important to continue this support throughout their careers, as employees’ circumstances and life events continue to change, from buying a house to marriage, through to retirement. This is why we provide employees with financial education throughout their career.”